Recovery of uranium(VI) from aqueous solution by 2-picolylamine functionalized poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride) resin.

A 2-picolylamine functionalized poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride) resin was synthesized and characterized by FT-IR, elemental analysis, SEM and XPS. To recover uranium from aqueous solution, the influence factors such as pH values, contact time, temperature and initial uranium concentration were optimized. Adsorption kinetics fitted well with the pseudo-second-order model, whereas adsorption isotherm matched well with the Langmuir isothermal adsorption model, with the maximum sorption capacity of 518.39mgg-1 at pH 5.30 and 298K. The uptake of uranium could be implied in 0.01M coexisted ions environment. Besides, the resin could be regenerated by 0.1M HNO3 and repeatedly utilized in circles. The study proved that the resin has potential application prospects for disposal of uranium(VI).